One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish
by Xyliette
Summary: Addison and Derek adopt a goldfish. Set mid-season 2.


A/N: So it is presently Thursday and this is prompt #2 out of 6. Anyone surprised? If you're on that list and reading this I swear they are coming sooner or later and I won't go into the boring mundane details of why I suck at life. This piece, was odd, admittedly but I had a lot of fun with it and I am terrified of fish so I gave myself a nice little pat on the back for portraying Fluffy so well. Thanks to the beta, **escapismrocks** and I hope you all enjoy the prompt as much as I did. Oh, and lastly the cut text is clearly property of one of my favorite writers ever, the late great Dr. Seuss._**  
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Three weeks and two days...  
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It wasn't about the goldfish.

It wasn't about the small glass bowl that sat on the only counter in the stupidly small trailer. It wasn't about the way he made little bubbles in the fresh water or the way the blue gravel in the bottom contrasted beautifully with his golden scales. Most definably, it was not relating to the way he would always pause and face the table when he sensed Addison in the room.

She can't handle being emotionally attached to a ridiculous fish that had the intelligence level of a sock so- it's not about that.

She pins it on a long day and gradually feels the tingling tightness in her chest. The feeling so familiar she doesn't even remember what it is like to be unstressed and carefree. She picks at the mail on the table and thinks through her day until the tears drip down her cheeks and her nose congests itself without second thought.

She's staring at the now empty holder three feet away. Methodically cleaned, sterilized and looking so new that no one would dare to think that a tiny life once inhabited its perimeters. Her eyes catches one of the dry rocks that missed the trash can by a half an inch and she starts back up again. She gasps reaching over to retrieve the discarded piece of processed material and places it in the proper receptacle.

She knew she wasn't a pet person. Some people just don't do well with animals. She was allergic to cats and frankly dogs were a lot of responsibility (she was finding out through Doc) for someone who was not even around enough to hold a marriage together. Once her father, seemingly making up for missing the entirety of her first grade year brought home a small hamster. She named him fluffy for some reason or another after days of perusing her favorite books and movies trying to find something completely perfect. She settled on the name after her mother began ranting about her being indecisive, whatever that meant.

What she didn't know was how big of a trend settling would become in her life.  
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"Dr. Shepherd!" Izzie's voice calls from behind her clicking heels. Addison's so tired at this point she would rather turn around and punch the intern in the face than scrub in on one more surgery.

She used to think that work was a good escape for her life. Now it just adds to all the pain. She can't escape the chattering mouths, she can't avoid her husband's wandering eyes and even after trying to be a bigger person there's a small part of her that wants to slap Meredith every time she sees her, regardless of the fact that it was not her fault in the slightest. She digs her shoe in the ground and spins, her scowl prepared. "What?"

"It's just, well there's a patient-"

"I'm not here Stevens, ask for someone else." Her voice loses its edge, gains sincerity and she feels the moisture tug at her eyes. It's simply one of those days where, if she wasn't so proud and hell bent on being fine with life, she would crumble into the floor and cry it out.

"She asked for you." The blonde explains playing with the chewed end of the pen in her pocket.

"Please, find someone else." Addison pleads, her blue orbs shutting down, her shoulders slouching forward.

"It's not medical." Izzie grins and turns around without receiving an answer, knowing full well that her mentor will follow in her footsteps. They arrive at 3831 without another word and Addison pulls the clip from her pocket, twisting her hair back, placing professional mode to on, before entering the room.

"Mrs. Howell, is there something I can help you with?" Addison snatches the chart from Izzie's hands and tries to remember delivering the eight pound, seven ounce baby boy at 8:31 this morning via a crash c-section but she's got nothing. All of her patients are blurring together in harsh black ink and shades of baby blue and light pink from the warm hats that she wants to light on fire. She needs a vacation.

"We just wanted to give you something." The woman on the bed explains with a thick southern accent that makes Addison work for every second of comprehension.

"Oh." It's not unusual to receive letters or thanks from the families that she was close with. In all actuality, as a doctor and as a New Yorker, there is little that takes her by surprise these days. And truth be told, even Meredith was an expected occurrence but that didn't make it hurt any less.

"I was trying to write you a nice thank you note but Mikey insisted we get you a little something else." Sandra explains and then yawns widely ushering her four year old son forward. He's wearing mismatching clothes- greenish khaki colored shorts, an orange shirt with a red fire truck on it and brown hiking boots that are badly in need of being tied- apparently he is in the stage of dressing himself.

"Here." He grins, missing one tooth and unclasps his hands from behind his back holding a clear plastic bag sealed by a rubber band. Addison gasps and steps back trying to act normal as Izzie smiles brilliantly.

"Thank you." Addison grins warmly and hesitantly reaches forward extending her hand.

"I'm not going to ask what y'all do with it but my husband has not mastered sayin' no just yet."

"I love it." Addison states and excuses herself to hurry back into her office in order to access the internet and obtain the list of requirements on keeping a goldfish alive because she doesn't have the first clue. Common sense tells her he can't live in a plastic bag forever and as she peruses the websites she finds herself smiling at the idea of having a low maintenance friend that Derek won't try and fry up.

After some quick research she looked up a pet shop that was open late and hurried out the door, unnamed fish safely tucked in her large black bag. Upon arriving, in the rain, she took the drowsy looking fish from her passenger seat and raced inside to find him a new home. One bag of cerulean rock, one plastic plant and one fake treasure chest that she couldn't tear herself from later she hurries home to find the trailer just as dark as she left it that morning. She throws all of her things on her "side" of the table and busies herself with her water loving lil buddy.

One crucial hour later where she swears Fluffy (an affectionate ode to her long dead hamster and something that seemed oddly fitting) tried to flat line on her she finally manages to strip down and wriggle into a fluffy robe waiting for her tea to whistle. She toys with the transparent bag by its watery string and throws in just a dash of sugar for good measure. Then she sits and waits. Waits for what she is unsure but after five minutes she finds Fluffy swirling about his tank joyously. That is, if fish have emotions- she isn't sure and adds it to the list of things to look up. She's nothing if not a responsible pet owner now. When Addison does something, she doesn't half ass it.

Derek stumbles into the trailer an hour later kicking off his shoes and passing her by in the name of scratching Doc's (who is monopolizing the bed) ears. Eventually he comes out to greet his wife dressed in red plaid pajama pants and a white undershirt.

"We have a fish?"

"We do." Addison states quietly sipping her tea and staring at her new found happiness.

"I thought you said no fish in the house."

"I said no rainbow trout in the trailer." She states flippantly remembering on how he corrected her term of "house" just a few weeks before.

Derek pauses and regards her figure. Slumped against the wall of his trailer, with her legs kicked out in front of her. She looks strangely relaxed and it's a first. "What's his name?"

"Fluffy."

"Fluffy? Addison it's not a dog."

"I know." She whispers feeling the exhaustion creep back in. She stands and heads toward the bedroom a whole foot away before stopping herself, spinning on her heel and blowing Fluffy a goodnight kiss.

"Hey where's mine?" Derek pouts playfully.

It's the first time she's heard that voice in years. She tilts her head to side and smiles shyly thinking that maybe Derek doesn't hate her new pet or the fact that it is dominating his counter space. She kisses her palm and lightly blows the invisible affection his way before traipsing to bed feeling like things are actually looking up.  
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He lived for three weeks and two days. Those weeks were good in Addison's book. She and Derek made momentary amends for their downfalls, shared hot cocoa in the name of superstition, befriended Meredith and repaired their lousy sex routine. Now she's here. Here with a dead fish flowing somewhere down the river by now. She made Derek do the deed because she couldn't bear it. If not in the name of it being slightly gross, for the simple fact that he was her only pet and she killed him. Or he died. She supposed since people don't do fish autopsies she'll never know.

She feels anxious and she hates to use things as sign and symbols for other issues in life but there's the tiniest illogical part of her that thinks that Fluffy saved her marriage. They bonded, he teased her relentlessly for the choice in name until she explained and she sat on his lap for hours just watching the little goldfish swim feeling like she was watching a crackling fireplace in a real house. He made things feel like home, like she wasn't suffocating, like she wasn't the world's loneliest person when Derek chose to work overnight.

He'd smile and poke her when he saw her feeding the fish and ignoring him and he'd run his finger along the cool glass bowl in the morning as his way of saying hello to the fair hued water inhabitant. Now he's outside bidding his goodbye to a small pet who once gave them something to look forward to for inexplicable reasons. The gilled friend floating away once gave them a reason to come together at home, something that his ex-girlfriend's dog simply couldn't provide because it was too complicated of a knot. Wound and tangled in the deepest, darkest corners of their hearts they knew that it wasn't about the fish. It was about them, it was about finding a connection again and this evening when they came home together for the first time all week and he found said fish belly up in the water he knew it wasn't going to be good.

He saunters back to the trailer in the dark, Doc hot on his trail and finds Addison curled up on the couch with a blanket over her head. There's a part of him that wants to run away; dive into the shower and rinse away the stream gunk and residue of death from his hands but conversely there is also a small part of him that yearns to hold his wife. A small tug in his beating core that says it's okay to touch and comfort her, if only for tonight. So he washes his hands with the foamy flowery soap by the bathroom sink that she loves and toes out of his shoes before crossing the threshold into depression land. He pulls the soft brown material from her head without question and nudges her upwards so he can slide into place.

Hours later after the sniffles from her self retained sobbing have silenced he watches the stars dance outside the thin pane of glass on his right while soothingly rubbing her back out of habit. It's one of the few clear nights out in Seattle since she's been there and he's half tempted to wake her up just to see the bright balls illuminating the sky. She always loved the stars, always knew they were there, even when she couldn't see them in New York and he thinks that just maybe she might appreciate this even from their spot in the middle of the woods. Daring himself he counts to ten and holds his breath while running a finger along the neck that is snuggled into his chest. "Addie, you up?"

"I am now." She grumbles without lifting her head, "Thanks."

"There are stars." He whispers feeling a little like a completely romanticized buffoon.

"Don't care."

"It was just a silly fish." He mumbles when she sits up and leans back into him groggily fixing her eyes on the bright whites up in the darkness of the world.

"It's not about the fish."

"I know." He kisses the top of her head and straightens out his legs knowing full well that they aren't moving for the night. "We could get another. Fluffy 2, it's like Rocky." He doesn't have to look down to know that she is crinkling his nose in complete disapproval.

"We can't."

And they won't because it was never really about the fish to begin with.

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End file.
